Filed 9/25/20 P. v. Watkins CA2/1

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a) , prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.11 15.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION ONE

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Responde nt,

v.

C URTIS DAL WATKINS

,

Defendant and Appella nt. B2 99454

(Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. MA073129 )

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of
Los Angeles County, Kathleen Blanchard , Judge. Affirmed.

____________________________

H. Russell Halpern, under appointment by the Court of Appe al, for Defendant and Appellant. Xavier Becerra, Attorney General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Susan Sullivan Pithey, Assistant Attorney General, Scott A. Taryle and Daniel C. Chang , Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

____________________________2 MEMORANDUM OPINION 1 A jury convicted defendant Curtis Dal Watkins of 10 counts of second degree robbery (Pen. Code, 2 § 211), four counts of attempted second degree robbery ( §§ 211, 664), two counts of kidnapping to commit robbery (§ 209, subd. (b)(1)), and one count of carrying a loaded firearm (§ 25850, subd. (c)(2))

. The trial court imposed an indeterminate sentence of 16 years to life for the kidnapping counts, plus a consecutive aggregate determina te sentence of 11 years 8 months in prison for the remaining counts.
O ver the course of one week in November 2017

, men wearing masks robbed or attempted to rob five cellular phone

stores across Southern California

. No victim or eyewitness was
able to identify any of the perpetrators. Police linked Watkins

to the robberies through circumstantial evidence, including
rental car records

, cell ular phone records, and the activation of an Apple Watch stolen in one of the robberies. Watkins contends
that thi s evidence was insufficient to support his convictions. We disagree and affirm.
The first two robberies occurred on consecutive nights, November 20 and 21, 2017, between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. at Verizon stores in Mission Hills and La Crescenta. In bot h cases, the perpetrator wore a mask, pointed a gun at the store clerk, and demanded that the clerk put the contents of the store’s safe

1 We resolve this case by memorandum opinion pursuant to standard 8.1 of the California Standards of Judicial Administration, because this appeal raises only “ factual issues that are determined by the substantial evidence rule .” ( Cal. Stds. Jud. Admin., std. 8.1(3).)

2 Unless otherwise specified, subsequent statutory references are to the Penal Code.3

into a bag. In both robberies, the perpetrator asked the clerk about the whereabouts of the “tracker phone,” an anti

- t heft device disguised as an iPhone box. On both nights, the perpetrator appeared to be traveling in a white sedan. The remaining incidents all occurred within about
9 0 minutes on the evening of November 27, 2017

. In the first incident, at around 8:30 p.m., two me n robbed a woman at gunpoint on a street in Culver City , demanding that she give them her phone and then stealing her bag

. They then fled into a
white sports utility vehicle (SUV)

. Shortly thereafter, three men wearing masks en tered a Verizon store a few blocks away , told everyone in the store to get down, and told the store’s manager to open the safe. One of the men was carrying a handgun. The men
took cell ular phones and other devices from the store’s inventory

, as well as m oney from the store’s safe

. One of the men asked the manager about the tracker phone. The surveillance video showed a white SUV parked in front of the store at the time of the robbery.
A short time later

, masked men driving a white Chevrolet
SUV attempte d to rob a T

- Mobile store in West Los Angeles

. The store was already closed, but the men located an employee who was leaving and demanded that he open the store for them. The employee told the men he did not have a key. The men told him
to call his manager to return to the store, but he was unable to convince his manager to do so . The men eventually gave up and released the employee. At around the same time , an employee was working on closing down a Verizon store less than a half mile away when she heard a thud at the front door

. She looked up
and saw a masked man at the door with his hand in his p ocket in a way that made her afraid he might have a gun

. When he saw4

her, he quickly walked away. Surveillance footage showed a
white SUV driving away just after this incident.
R ecords from an Enterprise Rent

- A

- Car location in Lancaster, near Watkins ’s home , indicated that Watkins rented

a white Toyota Camry from November 20 to November 22, 2017, and that he rented a white Chevrolet Equinox SUV from
Nove mber 27 to November 29. Cellular phone records showed
that on the evening of each of the robberies, a phone registered

to Watkins traveled from somewhere near Watkins’s home in
Lancaster to the area where the robber ies took place, and then
returned north toward Watkins’s home after the robberies were
finished. In the case of the Mission Hills robbery on November 20, the phone was used to make two calls between 7:07 p.m. and 7:11 p.m., approximately an hour before the robbery

, while
connected to a cellular tower less than one tenth of a mile away
from the site of the robbery. The following night, the phone made
three calls at around the time of the La Crescenta robbery while connected to a tower less than one quarter mile away. On t he evening of November 27, the phone accessed cell ular towers less than a mile away from the Culver City robbery at around
the time that robbery took place

. A police detective analyzed
the records pertaining to the phone for the months leading up to
the r obberies. The records indicated that when the phone was in use, it was most often connected to the cellular towers closest

to Watkins’s home

. N othing about the phone usage patterns indicated that someone else was using Watkins’s phone on the days of the robberies

. On November 28, 2017, the day after the Culver City robbery, an Apple Watch that had been stolen from the store was registered in Watkins’s name, including his home address and
email address.5 On February 1, 2018, police searched Watkins’s home and
car. Th ey found a loaded .40 caliber Glock handgun in his car. Police did not recover the phone and watch that had bee n registered to Watkins.
Watkins contends that the evidence was insufficient

to show that he w as involved in the robberies. In reviewing
suffic iency of the evidence, we do not reweigh the evidence. ( People v. Collom (2020) 52 Cal.App.5th 35

, 41 ( Collom ) .) Instead, we ask “ ‘ whether, on the entire record, a rational
trier of fact could find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt.

. . . [ W]e must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the People and must presume in support of the judgment the existence of every fact the trier could reasonably
deduce from the evidence. ’ [Citation.] ” ( People v. Ochoa (1993)
6 Cal.4th 1199, 1206.) “Because the sufficiency of the evidence
is ultimately a legal question, we must examine the record independently for ‘ “substantial evidence

— that is, evidence which
is reasonable, credible, and of solid value” ’ that would support

a finding beyond a reasonable doubt. ( People v. Boyce (2014)
59 Cal.4th 672, 691 .

. . .)” ( People v. Banks (2015) 61 Cal.4th 788, 804.)
Watkins argues that the evidence showed at most that
he owned the mobile phone in question, not that it was in his possession d uring the robberies

. He analogizes his case to those involving the possession of narcotics

. In particular, he cites People v. Antista (1954) 129 Cal.App.2d 47, 50 ( Antista ) , in which the court held that the presence of an illegal substance in the
defenda nt’s home is insufficient to prove that the defendant possessed it . There must be some additional evidence to

“ indicate [ ] knowledge of the defendant of its presence and his
control of it. ” ( Ibid. )6 We are skeptical that th is case is sufficiently analogous to support Watkins’s position. In Antista , the defendant testified
that he never smoked due to a medical condition , and that he left a key under a mat to allow friends to visit while he was away. ( Antista

, supra , 129 Cal.App.2d at p. 48.) The court held that under these circumstances, there was insufficient evidence to
find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant , rather than

a visitor, possessed marijuana found hidden in a cupboard. ( Id. at p p. 52

– 53.) In this case, by contrast, there was nothing

to suggest that Watkins’s cellular phone was in anyone else’s possession during the relevant period s . In stead , a detective who
had examined Watkins’s phone records found nothing in them

to indicate that the phone had been stolen or that someone other than Watkins was using it on the days of the robberies

. 3 Furthermore, additional evidence corroborated the cell ular phone data and demonstrated Watkins’s involvement in the
robberies

. T he Enterprise record s showed that Watkins rented
vehicles matching the descriptions of those seen at the robberies over the same dates when the robberies took place . In addition,
Watkins registered a n Apple Watch the day after it was stolen

3 Watkins also cites cases holding that when a vehicle is involved in an accident, its registered owner is obligated
to identify himself to the driver of the other car or t o a police officer, but only if the owner is present in the car. ( People v. Monismith (1969) 1 Cal.App.3d 762, 766 ; People v. Mace (2011) 198 Cal.App.4th 875, 886 .) We fail to understand the relevance of these cases. The question is not whether Watkins would be responsible for the actions of someone else who was carrying his phone. Instead, the question is whether the records showing the location of Watkins’s phone can be used to prove Watkins’s involvement in the robberies.7

during one of the robberies. Fina lly, police discovered a handgun
in Watkins’s car that matched several witnesses’ descriptions of a gun used in the robberies.
All the evidence in this case was circumstantial, but
it is hornbook law that circumstant ial evidence alone may be sufficient to support a defendant’s conviction. ( See, e.g., People v.
Goldstein (1956) 139 Cal.App.2d 146, 151 ; CALJIC No. 2.00 .)
The evidence in this case was sufficient to allow “ ‘ a reasonable
trier of fact [to] find the defendant guilty beyon d a reasonable
doubt. ’ [Citation.] ” ( Collom

, supra , 52 Cal.App.5th at p. 41 .)
For this reason, we must affirm Watkins’s conviction.

DISPOSITION

The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHE D

ROTHSCHILD, P. J.
We concur:

BENDIX , J.

SINANIAN

, J. *

* Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.